Hurricane Katrina

[Madison]

The following teams are based squarely in the devastation of Hurricane Katrina:
1304 - New Orleans Center for Science and Mathematics
1534 - Marion Abramson Senior High School
1550 - O. Perry Walker Senior High School
1589 - John F. Kennedy Senior High School
364 - Gulfport High School

Based on what I've been able to gather from news and other sources, it seems given that these teams will not be participating in the 2006 FIRST competitions. New Orleans is expected to be uninhabitable for upward of four months, while the Mississippi coast is probably facing a similar timeline. In any case, rebuilding infrastructure, homes and businesses will be priority to piecing together the funds and manpower needed for a FIRST team.

Also on the news, I've heard reports that the city of Houston, in particular, is preparing to make a temporary home for many of the millions displaced by these storms. Refugees are currently being moved to the Astrodome, former home of FIRST's Championship event. Houston's public schools are preparing for an influx of students from the affected areas and the additional needs that are associated with that. Schools need more room, more textbooks and more teachers. Students and families may need subsidized lunches and supplies. These new burdens require money that will assuredly be taken from other, less critical programs. FIRST is, as much as we might hate to admit it, a luxury that should lose funding for these important needs -- as should sports and other extracurricular activities.

Genuinely, I hate to rally support without a clear avenue of action in mind, but the breadth and immensity of these events are staggering. I believe that, perhaps, giving the kids and mentors from the teams affected the opportunity to continue in FIRST -- in something familiar when all they have has been lost -- may be invaluable. What can we do to provide that opportunity?

It may not be rebuilding a levee and erecting a house, but there must be something -- smaller, undoubtedly -- that we can do for these folks.